Utopia
by TheShyOrator
Summary: In a world where the rich become richer while the poor stay poor, the sudden reality of the supernatural looms over Sakura. Who is the red-haired stranger, and why is he looking for her? What do the markings on her chest mean? Will Sakura be able to keep from tangling in his web or will she be eaten by the ghoul living on her balcony? A SasoSaku soulmate AU.
1. A Birthday to Remember

**Utopia**

 **Rated M** for strong language and violence.

 **A/N:** Utopia is a fusion of numerous themes, such as cyberpunk, soulmate marks, and the supernatural. Inspired by Cristobal Tapia De Veer's music, Akira and Studio Ghibli (particularly Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle), as well as Peridot by VesperChan and Incantations by Thirrin73 (I could rave about their stories for hours so go take a look at their work if you haven't already!).

* * *

Chapter 1

 **A Birthday to Remember**

* * *

The puddles had yet to dry from yesterday's rain, glistening dark on the pristine sidewalk. Evening approached, though it was hard to tell when the dark was seared away by the sharp, neon lights bouncing off the puddles' surface as lurid advertisements flashed above them. Holographic images of models beaming in garish delight over various products and useless gadgets assaulted them from every possible angle as they made their way towards the restaurant.

Sakura eyed passersby on the street, breaking out in hives at their shameless gluttony. She didn't have to look to know that Ino was just as revolted by the sight as her. Men wearing suits costing more than their yearly wage combined passed them, escorting beautiful ladies swathed in luxurious furs and jewels from faraway lands, all in search of a night of entertainment to sate their vices. The restless shift in their eyes gave it away. There was none of the hard-eyed gauntness Sakura was so used to seeing in the slums. This was a different kind of hunger. One that only the corrupt and the wealthy were privy to.

Sakura despised them.

Ino tugged her to hasten her pace, their heels clicking in sync as they walked up the street. They'd parked in an area reserved for the restaurant's guests, and Sakura had left her boots and jacket with her bike. She thanked the high heavens that Ino had taught her how to walk in these death contraptions. Arms were looped together, Ino's flowing dress brushed against Sakura's leg with every step they took. She looked fantastic tonight, having chosen a sweeping purple cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline that left her delicate collarbones on display. Sakura had no idea where she'd gotten the money for either of their dresses for the night but knew better than to ask. They were dirt compared to these people.

They had no business entering this side of town, where even the air they breathed was expensive, but Ino was determined to celebrate. It wasn't every day that her best friend turned twenty-three, she'd said. Every birthday was worth celebrating in her mind. Sakura had laughed when Ino told her not to worry because this was her treat. She knew that Ino didn't have any intention of paying for anything here and wondered how she expected to be able to outrun anyone in these shoes. Hence the reason Sakura had taken her boots along for the ride because there was no way she was getting chased in heels.

Sakura held open the door when they arrived, and Ino walked up to the reception manned by a greeter in a bowtie and bespoke suit. It was warm inside, with soft music flowing from hidden speakers. The floor was covered by a wine red carpet, which complemented the dark wood of the furniture. Sakura looked up at the gleaming chandeliers, trying to disguise her reluctant awe as she took in the the restaurant, lit in a soft glow so unlike the stark lights of the outside world. Everything looked so elegant here, and Sakura had to hand it to Ino — she really knew how to pick a place.

"Hi, a table for two," Ino said with a confidence Sakura was not feeling, and she couldn't help but marvel at how natural her friend looked here, surrounded by such opulence.

"Do you have a reservation?" The waiter behind the counter asked.

"No, I didn't think we'd need one." Ino gave with a cute pout, lounging up against the counter at a flattering angle that usually got her what she wanted. She knew better than to call. They would never have given them a table if they saw the area code of her phone.

The greeter feigned a smile, though there was nothing fake about the way he eyed her displayed bust, and looked down at his monitor. Sakura shifted her weight onto her other foot, ready to pull Ino away and head back towards their usual joint. This place wasn't worth the effort, no matter how classy it appeared.

"There was a cancellation. Our next table should be available in about thirty minutes if you're willing to wait," he announced after a moment of shuffling through the evening's reservations.

"Lucky us. We'll stay," Ino said with a sharp smile that he did not return.

"If you would be so kind as to wait here for a moment, another waiter will come to escort you to the official waiting area," he said but forgot about them when the door opened again. He looked past them and plastered on an oily smile.

"Excuse me," the man who'd just entered said. He was handsome in a painstaking way, his carefully coiffed hair and groomed features giving away the time and money he put in maintaining his looks. His date on the other hand, a tall woman with dark hair pulled up into an elegant knot, was an effortless beauty, skin glowing smoothly in the flattering light, her lips a glossy red. She eyed Ino and Sakura with barely veiled disdain as they rudely pushed past them to get the counter.

Sakura had the urge to stick out her tongue at her, just to see their reaction.

"Ah, monsieur. Your usual table?" the greeter asked the asshole. At receiving a nod, he lifted the countertop to escort them personally. "Excuse us, ladies," he said, and they both smiled with practiced demureness as they stepped out of their way. Sakura made sure that the couple had to let go of each other to get between them, her arm brushing against the man's suit as they passed. Ino did the same on the other side, but she purposefully bumped into the lady hard enough to have to grab her by the shoulder to keep them from falling.

"Oh, my! I'm so sorry," she said earnestly and took a step back to give them more space.

The lady sent her an arctic glare as she put her hand on her companion's arm again, their silence expressing far more than any words as they continued on.

"That fucker didn't seem to need a reservation. I bet they took our table!" Ino hissed into Sakura's ear when they were out of hearing range.

"What did you expect from a place like this?" Sakura whispered back, and Ino scowled. She opened her mouth to make another scathing remark but was interrupted by the arrival of their waiter.

"Allow me to escort you, ladies. You can take a seat at the bar while you wait for a table," he said with a bow. The bar served as a waiting area as well and was just as grand as the rest of the establishment. Sakura wondered why they couldn't just have their dinner here.

The tables were tall enough for them to stand by them, but they chose one with chairs, neither of them eager to stand for so long in heals. Ino placed her purse on the table as they took their seat and Sakura took a look around. Their new position gave them a good view of the restaurant, though her back was to the door.

"Can I serve you anything to drink?" he asked when they were seated.

"Yes, I'll have the House Blend," Ino said after considering the menu. The waiter nodded and looked at Sakura expectantly.

"I'll just have some sparkling water." Sakura smiled.

"Excellent, I'll have your drinks ready in a moment."

"Water? It's your birthday, forehead. Live a little!" Ino groaned, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

"It's fancy water," Sakura defended. "Besides, one of us needs to keep their wits about them."

"Always so responsible," Ino sighed.

"You'd be dead without me, pig" Sakura teased, reminding her of all the times she'd bailed her ass out of jail.

"Probably," Ino agreed, unrepentant.

They bickered back and forth and Sakura couldn't keep the smile off her face, starting to feel glad that she'd agreed to Ino's harebrained scheme. She'd never been inside such a fancy place.

"Here we are." Their waiter set down their drinks in front of them. Sakura smiled politely in thanks, and Ino batted her eyes flirtatiously. He flushed. "Anything else I can get you?"

"No thank you." Ino gave him a sultry smile and wrapped her plump lips around her straw to take a sip. "We'll call if we need anything."

The poor guy didn't stand a chance under the full force of Ino's brand of seductive charm. He bowed and walked away with a slightly dazed expression. Ino snorted when he was out of view. Sakura held her glass up to her mouth to hide her grin against the rim. Her drink wasn't nearly as indulgent as Ino's, but she needed to keep a clear head when they hit the road again.

Now that they were alone, Ino lounged back in her chair, holding her ridiculously expensive cocktail to her chest, and Sakura watched as she took another sip of it, careful not to smear her lipstick.

"You know that there's bound to be as much sugar, if not more, than alcohol in that drink," Sakura said, and Ino pouted.

"I'm not on a diet so don't spoil this for me!" Ino clutched the drink to her chest defensively.

"You never needed to go on a diet in the first place," Sakura sighed. Ino relaxed, a small smile crossing her face. The door opening let in a gust of wind and Sakura shivered as the cold air brushed against the bare skin of her back. Her red dress was backless, a far cry from her usual getup, and she was grateful that it had sleeves.

"Stop squirming, you look hot!" Ino reassured her.

Sakura stopped fidgeting and smoothed out the skirt of her dress, feeling like the slit that ran up her thigh to her hip was exposing her ass cheeks to the world. She was wearing underwear of course, but the only pair that would look good with this kind of dress was a high waisted thong, and that hardly gave her much coverage. Thank the gods that the material was too heavy to blow away at the slightest breeze. Sakura was only glad that the split fabric meant that she didn't need to hike up her skirt to grab the trusty old blade she'd holstered around her hidden thigh.

Ino had her pistol concealed her purse, never leaving the house without it, but Sakura hadn't dared to travel unarmed even though they were in the safer part of the city.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ino grumbled and gestured towards the reception with her chin.

Sakura turned around and saw the greeter lead three men in suits to the dining hall. The tallest had a dark scowl on his face, and his unnaturally green iris and red sclera sent a wave of dread down Sakura's spine. She knew danger when she saw it, and this was not a man to be trifled with. His two companions, a blond and a redhead, had their back to her. The lazy slump to their shoulders lent them the appearance of boredom, but Sakura knew that they weren't here to mix business with pleasure.

Her skin tingled, and Sakura shivered at the odd sensation. She took a cooling sip of her drink and was about to comment on it when their waiter returned. He was eager to give Ino a refill, but she placed a hand over her glass.

"Could we have something to nibble on instead? We're starting to get hungry," Ino asked, and Sakura could see the annoyance lurking underneath her playful smile.

"Of course! I apologize for the delay. Your table will be ready in a few moments." He hurried off and returned with a basket full of bread and a small jar of something. It was freshly prepared by the cook and on the house, according to the waiter. Whatever it was, it was delicious. Sakura was too hungry to be instantly soothed by some fancy bread but they still took a moment to appreciate the taste and texture of it.

"Let's hope there won't be a shootout," Ino spoke suddenly, and Sakura knew she was referring to the new arrivals.

"Yeah, that's not how I want to spend my evening," Sakura sighed. It was depressing how frequently fights broke out nowadays. It was always the same — civilians caught in the crossfire of gang wars, and corrupt officials looked the other way while men like these made dark deals in fancy restaurants.

Luck was with them tonight, and when they finally got their table, they were relieved to see that it was close to the kitchen so they could make a quick exit through the back if things turned sour. Sakura smirked when she saw whose table the men had joined. It was the couple they'd bumped into in the reception and she got a mild kick from seeing the nervous sweat gathering on the man's face at being cornered. Served him right for getting involved with men like these when he couldn't deliver. The lady was unhappy with their new company, and going by the fierce glare she was giving her date, this hadn't been a part of their evening plans.

Their waiter weaved in between tables and steered them through the dining hall with ease. Sakura was relieved that the man with the scary eyes had his back to her. The blond, who was closer to Sakura's age, winked at her when he saw her looking. She raised an unimpressed brow at his shameless appraisal of her, and his grin widened in return. She moved her attention to the last man at the table, the redhead. His head was turned and Sakura only got a glimpse at his profile, too brief to tell anything beyond a straight-edged nose and a sharp jawline. A tremor ran through her, but the unsettling feeling lasted only for a fraction of a second as she passed them by. He didn't look up, much to Sakura's relief.

They placed their orders when they were seated, having had plenty of time to make up their minds while they waited.

"Tonight, we eat like royalty," Ino said and held up her glass in a toast which Sakura gladly reciprocated. They were going all out tonight and had requested a three-course meal.

Curiosity got the better of her and Sakura looked over at the mafioso table. Now that she had time to observe them properly she noticed the similarities between the blond man and Ino. He wore his hair, which was a shade darker than Ino's natural platinum, half pulled up in a ponytail with a long bang covering one eye.

"I think I found your long lost twin," she murmured, barely containing a cackle when Ino scoffed.

"Where?"

"Over there." Sakura gestured discretely to their table, but Ino had no such compunction and craned her neck to get a better look.

"Motherfucker, you're right," Ino gasped in outrage. She wasn't the only one to have noticed, and the blond met her with a thunderstruck stare of his own. Ino scowled, and he glared back. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned back to Sakura. "Whatever, I'm still prettier."

"I don't know," Sakura drawled. His visible blue eye was quite striking. "He could give you a run for your money."

"You're horrible," Ino deadpanned, and Sakura finally gave in to the urge to laugh.

The blond's pouting must have caught the attention of his companion because when Sakura looked over again, she made direct eye contact with hooded amber eyes. Her skin crawled with sudden, unnatural heat. Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, Sakura's eyes lowered down to his hand, which was curled around a wine glass, and her breath caught in her chest.

Thin blue strings extended from his fingers and stretched across the room. She quickly turned to see where they led, but they vanished through the front door. The shock of seeing something so bizarre forced her back to reality, and her eyelids fluttered against a sudden lightheadedness. She snuck another look at him out of the corner of her eye, and her heart lurched when she saw that he was still staring at her.

He only looked away when the rich guy made to stand up, but something yanked him back down. His date had abandoned him to his fate. A new string had materialized from the redhead's finger, now connected to the man's chest, forcing him into submission with a twitch of his finger. Sakura's eyes widened in horror, and she hastened to look away before the redhead discovered that he had a witness. When it came to survival around here, Sakura was good at keeping her head down. Ino hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, or she would have grabbed Sakura and hightailed out of there.

Sakura was desperate for a distraction. She searched wildly for something to say before she went into hysterics. Her voice was an octave higher than natural when she spoke. "How's work?"

Ino's parents were florists, which was not the most lucrative business, but Sakura knew they would have been well off if they'd lived in another world. They sold the most beautiful flowers in all of Konoha, freshly grown and imported from the Yamanaka clan greenhouses, still kept up and running from the long-bygone era of Konoha's Founders if the rumors were true.

Ino gave her a weird look but chose not to comment on the abrupt change of topic. "It's been kind of slow lately, but we're bound to have more business if the fighting keeps up. Sympathy flowers are always so depressing to arrange," she sighed before perking up. "I have an early shift tomorrow. You should totally come by and save me from boredom."

"Yeah, I might," Sakura said absently. It had been some time since her last visit to the Yamanaka Flower. That had been for a funeral as well.

Ino looked up from her plate and appeared pensive all of a sudden. "You know that there's still a chance they're-" she started quietly, her expression soft but Sakura couldn't bear it. She knew where this was going and had to put a stop to it before she said their names.

"I think this dress is giving me a rash," Sakura interrupted her. She refused to cry on her birthday. "I'm going to go to the bathroom and check it out."

"I need to take a piss," Ino said after a pause and stood up. "I'll come with you."

"Is there a problem?" Their young waiter popped up, and Sakura's eyebrow twitched with annoyance. His eagerness to please had been amusing at first, but now it was starting to wear on her patience.

"We're just going to powder our noses," Ino said, her words devoid of her earlier crassness. She put her hand on Sakura's back and led her away, recognizing the signs of her rising temper.

They had to pass their table again, and the blond shamelessly checked them out though he still narrowed his eyes at Ino, who didn't hide her disdainful appraisal of him. The scary-eyed man spoke to the rich man in a low, threatening manner. Sakura feigned obliviousness, and carefully kept her eyes ahead, aware of the pair of eyes drilling into the back of her head.

Hopefully, Ino wouldn't notice.

But of course she did.

Perceptive as a bloodhound on the scent, she smirked at Sakura the moment they'd locked the door.

"You've got an admirer."

Sakura could only curse. Those freaky strings only meant trouble, and there was no way she was going to drag Ino into harm's way.

"Oh?" she said with forced disinterest as she pulled her arms out of the long sleeves of her dress, the silky fabric rolling as she pushed the front down. She didn't feel any shame when the cold air nipped at her exposed breasts. There wasn't anybody here to see her half-naked except for Ino, and they'd been best friends for over ten years. The skin between her breasts was a splotchy red and irritated, and she placed her hand on it. It was hot to the touch and sore too, feeling slightly inflamed against her palm.

"What the hell," Ino breathed, leaning in to take a closer look. "Do you think it's an allergic reaction?"

"It's not appearing anywhere else. It kinda looks like a bug bite," Sakura said with a frown.

"Gross," Ino grimaced.

Sakura rolled her eyes at her friend's squeamishness and went over to the sink to run a tissue under the cold water and pressed it to her chest, sighing at the momentary relief it gave her. She turned around and leaned against the sink, marveling at how clean everything was here, while Ino took a leak. She could see her reflection on the tiles. It would be hard to return to reality, where public bathrooms were disgusting from regular acts of vandalism, and more often than not littered with needles and syringes - with the occasional blood splatters - left behind by the shaky hands of addicts.

Ino checked Sakura's hip to get to the sink, and Sakura threw the now warm tissue into the bin. She looked into the mirror to get a closer look at the redness and put her dress back on after a moment of deliberation. It didn't seem serious, and the pain was mild compared to what she's experienced.

"Does it hurt?" Ino asked. She slung her purse onto the counter and pulled out a gloss and handed it to Sakura.

"No," Sakura said. She met her eyes in the mirror as she applied it and raised an eyebrow in question when she saw Ino's smug grin.

"I got her pearls," Ino sang and dangled the necklace in between her thumb and forefinger to show her. It belonged to the woman she'd bumped into at the reception.

"Well, I got his wallet," Sakura countered and held it up with a devilish smirk. Ino laughed in delight and slung her arm over Sakura's shoulder.

"How much is in there?" she asked, and Sakura opened the wallet. They both gasped when they saw the thick wad of bills inside.

"What an idiot! Who the hell carries around that much?" Ino snatched the money and counted it quickly, swearing when she noticed they were all one hundred bills. She stuffed it into her bra for safekeeping.

"I've never seen a credit card like this," Sakura mused and showed Ino the sleek black card she'd found inside the wallet. It had a holographic serial number on it and a small silver chip but no name or address.

"It's a luxury card!" Ino gasped and grabbed it, already pulling out her phone. "Shika is going to freak! Who the hell is this guy?"

"An idiot we just robbed," Sakura smirked and tossed the wallet into the garbage. Bless Shikamaru and all his tech. Ino would send him the serial number so he could bleed the bastard dry. It wasn't worth the risk of keeping the wallet when there was a chance of it having a tracker sewed into its leather. Rich people were so paranoid these days.

"Well, who wouldn't want to be robbed by a pair of babes like us?" Ino struck a pose that put her curves on display for the mirror. Sakura snorted and smacked her on the bottom.

"Should we pay the bill now that we have the money?" she asked, handing Ino her gloss back.

"Are you crazy? I'm not going to waste a single penny in this pretentious place!" Ino hissed. She looked scandalized at the thought, and Sakura laughed.

"We can't keep this," Sakura gestured with the card. "The chip definitely has a tracker, and they'll find us if we make a withdrawal."

"We're not taking it with us, but we could use his card to pay for our meal," Ino dismissed.

"What happened to not paying a single penny?"

"It's not every day a rich, handsome man pays for your meal," Ino cooed and swiped the card from Sakura's hand and put it in her purse. "Besides, we'll be gone before they notice."

"True," Sakura agreed.

"Come on, I want some dessert," Ino said and pulled Sakura out of the bathroom. They rounded the corner just in time to see the redhead mutter something with a small smirk that sent the blond off. The rich man was nowhere in sight, but Sakura noticed that the men were eating the food the couple had ordered.

"How can you say such a thing? Art is supposed to be fleeting!" the blond cried, banging the table for emphasis. He would have continued, but he'd incited the ire of the scary-eyed man when the cutlery clinked loudly against the wooden tabletop.

"Deidara, shut up," he growled, pointing his knife at him threateningly.

"Don't point that knife at me unless you want to dance, Kakuzu, yeah!" Deidara spat, looking ready to vault over the table and tackle him.

The redhead leaned back in his seat and watched them with open satisfaction at having successfully riled his partners. Sakura slowed down, wanting to catch his name now that she could hear them, but he saw them. The moment their eyes met, the skin between her breasts started to sting again, and Sakura was now positive he had something to do with it. She narrowed her eyes at him, insulted both by his looks and herself for finding him attractive. His brows rose, unimpressed by her scowl. Sakura didn't want to give him the satisfaction of letting him see how unnerved she was and was grateful when Ino pulled her past them, breaking their strange connection.

"What a bunch of weirdos," Ino muttered as they sat down.

Sakura agreed, there was definitely something wrong with them. She was hesitant to call it supernatural, but it was either that, or she was losing her mind.

She preferred the latter.

They ordered a sinful slice of chocolate cake and a bowl of strawberry ice cream to share. Ino was slumped back in her seat by the time they'd finished, having gorged herself on the excellent food. She entertained herself by twirling her wine glass by the stem, and Sakura felt an overwhelming fondness for her. She reached over the table to take Ino's hand and squeezed it.

"Thank you for tonight."

"Of course, only the best for my friends," Ino dismissed after her initial surprise. She turned her hand up and tickled Sakura's palm until she let her go. The redhead was still watching her with a calculative gaze, and Sakura wanted nothing more than to leave. Then, she realized that nothing was stopping her now that they'd eaten.

"Ready to get this show on the road?" she asked, and Ino nodded. She threw her napkin onto her plate and stood up.

"Go get the bike, I'll be ready."

Sakura hurried away, fearing that the redhead would follow her out if she didn't walk fast enough. Her heart sank when she was reminded of his strings. They were still in place, shuddering like a spider's web as the waiters stepped on them and sent the vibrations back to their caster. Suitably freaked out, Sakura avoided touching them and followed a group of rowdy businessmen out of the restaurant. They spilled out onto the street with drunken guffaws, but they walked on unhindered by the threads.

Sakura darted down the sidewalk towards the parking lot, observing how the strings dispersed in every direction and extended until they were out of sight. She shuddered and picked up her pace. It was getting dark, and the chilly air nipped at her skin. Three men sat on another restaurant's veranda and catcalled loudly as she passed but she forced herself to ignore them. The one leaning against the railing stretched his hand out to swat at her ass but missed. He laughed and made a crass gesture to his lap with a: _'Hey, baby! Come sit with us — there's a seat for you right here!_ '

Anger seethed inside her at their audacity. She kept going nonetheless, fists curled tight with the desire to strike out, but she was missing her knuckledusters for an unforgettable hit and knew that now wasn't the time for retribution.

Her bike stood untouched, and Sakura wasted no time in placing her hand on the scan to verify her identity and pulled up the seat to access the compartment underneath for her clothes. She kicked off her heels in favor of her boots with glee, wriggling her stiff and aching toes, and pulled on a pair of skintight shorts. There wasn't time to take off her dress with Ino waiting for her, but she shifted the holster to her bared thigh for easy access to her knife and threw on her beat-up racer jacket. She then tucked the skirt into her shorts to keep it out of the way and pushed the seat back down.

Her baby purred to life as she undid the kill switch on the circuit, thrumming warmly between her thighs. Sakura kicked off with a savage grin, and she tore off onto the street. She hadn't forgotten the man who'd tried to touch her and steered her bike onto the sidewalk. Walking pedestrians flattened themselves to the wall with shouts as she rode up the pavement. The men were still sitting there, whistling at a skittish group of teenage girls, and Sakura gave a burst of speed.

She took great pleasure in grabbing him by the head and smashing his face into the table with enough force to break his nose. Screams broke out as the table toppled over, sending glass flying, but Sakura didn't slow down. They were bound to call the cops on her, but she didn't care. She needed to get Ino, and they'd be off. Besides, the police wouldn't follow them into the Fringes.

They never did.

Sakura proceeded onto the street and slowed down when she came to the restaurant but didn't dare to get any closer when she saw that the mobsters were standing on the sidewalk. She took note of the little red cloud emblem they wore on their tie clips but couldn't place it. They were preparing to leave but stalled when she revved her engine in signal for Ino to get her ass out. They looked up at the noise, the redhead turning to her when they recognized her but before he could engage, Deidara threw his head back with a laugh.

"I like your style, pinky!" he called.

Sakura rolled her eyes, resenting the juvenile nickname, and flicked him the finger.

"You jealous?" she called back, seeing no harm in engaging in some light-hearted smack talk when she'd be gone in less than a minute.

As if summoned, Ino threw open the door to the restaurant and jumped out. It was amazing how fast she could move in those pumps, because she was past the mobsters and on the street a split second later, shouting, "So long, suckers!"

She hopped on behind Sakura with practiced ease and wound her arms around her middle. Sakura laughed, adrenaline rushing through her veins when the waiter burst out of the restaurant. In his haste, he bumped into Deidara with enough force to send him stumbling.

"Watch it!" Deidara shouted as he caught himself on the redhead, who shoved him away with a snarl, but the waiter wasn't listening.

"Ma'am!" he yelled, rushing towards them with his hand raised. Ino laughed hysterically and fluttered her fingers in farewell as Sakura kicked off. They tore down the street, Ino's laughter drowned by the growl of the motorcycle.

There wasn't much traffic besides the usual cabs, but people walked carelessly onto the streets. The sound of Sakura's bike was enough to warn them of her approach, but she had to swerve to avoid crashing into a group of young adults. They shouted profanities at them as they pelted past. Sakura's ears picked up the sound of sirens approaching, and she knew they would be in trouble if they didn't make it to the Fringes before they caught sight of them.

She gasped as the dull pain in her chest burned brightly. Something was seriously wrong with her, but there was no time to stop and check, and going to the hospital was out of the question now that they were being tailed.

"Wow, that was quick!" Ino remarked when a police vehicle sped onto the street some paces behind them. Sakura didn't answer but knew it was her fault for being such a hothead. It was still worth it. Sweat gathered on her forehead, and she tightened her grip on the handlebars. They gained more speed as they got closer to the Fringes.

The traffic was worse in this part of the city, and horns blared around them as they zigzagged between cars. Sakura saw an opening between two lanes as they approached an intersection. The lights were red, and the police were stuck behind the other vehicles. Nobody liked pigs in these parts, so no one moved out of their way despite their blaring sirens. Sakura thanked her lucky stars that their petty crimes didn't warrant any backup.

They were almost at the intersection when suddenly a monstrous creature emerged from the shadows of an alleyway. Its body bubbled like boiling tar, but its dark skin had an odd transparent quality as it crawled forward. It looked ill. People walked through it without hesitation, shuddering like they were caught in a cool breeze but otherwise completely unaware of its presence as it slunk across the street in front of them. Sakura watched in horror as cars moved right through it like it was invisible, a scream bubbling in her throat.

 _What the hell was going on?_

"Do you see that?" Sakura shouted. She was fed up with being the only one freaked out by this.

"See what?" Ino asked, confirming her fears. This may all be happening inside her head, but there was no way in hell that she was getting close to that thing.

"Hold on!" Sakura slammed on the breaks. The rubber of her tires squealed against the concrete as she changed direction abruptly. Ino's grip on Sakura turned bruising as she held on for dear life.

"Sakura!" Ino screamed into her ear.

They rounded the corner and Sakura growled as they steamed into oncoming traffic. She veered sharply, and they sped off the street and onto the walkway before they could collide. People jumped out of their way with alarmed shouts. They needed more cover, so Sakura swerved onto a side street, and recognized their surroundings with rising panic. They were close to the bridge where most of the street beggars slept at night, and that meant they were encroaching Oto's territory. They'd be shot down on sight — Sakura's hair was very noticeable.

"Fuck," Sakura hissed and turned back towards the Fringes, crisscrossing between streets and toeing the line between neutral grounds and Oto. The sirens were fading away, but Sakura didn't dare to stop until they were inside their own neighborhood.

She navigated past the cocksure teens roaming the streets in search of entertainment. They sped past groups of boys posturing to one another, their raging testosterone spilling onto the streets and nearly always gravitating them were groups of girls, who eyed them in smug appreciation. Too many paused to call out to Ino and her in predictable overconfident jeers.

It was grating, seeing them act like they owned the city, but only because it reminded Sakura of the time she spent her nights in a similar fashion. They were looking for the same thing — an escape. It seemed like this generation lived by the same principles; live life like there was no tomorrow. They were right in a sense. Because the future wasn't worth shit. Graduating with a title of ' _likeliest to succeed'_ had made Sakura cocky, so certain of her future when she, out of all her friends, had nabbed an internship at a clinic. Her dreams of becoming _Dr. Sakura Haruno_ seemed laughable now. Fired from a dirty clinic and now a woefully single and unemployed twenty-three-year-old on the run from the police after a stupid dine and dash, and seeing monsters at every turn.

What a time to be alive.

"You can let me off at my parent's apartment," Ino said as Sakura automatically headed towards her own lonely apartment.

"You sure?" Sakura asked, and Ino nodded. She pressed her face into Sakura's shoulder, most likely exhausted after all the excitement.

"Early shift tomorrow remember?" she said so quietly that Sakura almost didn't hear her. She'd completely forgotten about that.

Sakura shook off her worthless nostalgia and delivered Ino home. She came to a stop in front of the Yamanaka Flower, and Ino hopped off to stretch her legs. Her parents had lived in the apartment above the store for as long as Sakura could remember.

"Why did you head towards Oto like that?" Ino asked.

"I thought I saw something," Sakura mumbled. That monster was the least of her problems at the moment. She was breathing through her nose in an attempt to conceal how shallow her breath was. The burn in her chest had turned into vicious, needlelike pinpricks, stabbing the flesh between her breast raw.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Ino asked, unconvinced.

"Yeah, I'm just tired," Sakura reassured her with a weak smile. Ino considered her for a moment before throwing her arms around her in a quick embrace.

"Whatever. Let me know when you get home, forehead." She pulled away.

"Night," Sakura said, her chest hurting in more than one way. She waited until Ino had unlocked her door and returned her wave before taking off home.

She made it in one piece, sending Ino a quick but distracted text as promised. The stumble up the back stairs was agony. She was wheezing by the time she was on her floor and all but fell into her cramped studio apartment after unlocking the door. The pain in her chest spiked, and it felt like she was being stabbed with a knife. Staggering into her bathroom and turning on the light, Sakura blinked as her eyes adjusted to the harsh brightness. She blanched when she saw herself in the mirror. Her sweaty face had a sickly pallor to it and her eyes glistened feverishly bright.

She almost looked as bad as that grisly ghost.

"Shit!" Sakura gasped as the pain rose to new heights and tore off her dress with shaking hands. She watched in transfixed silence as the irritation on her skin started to take shape. Red welled up through her skin and Sakura trembled as a distinct mark formed on her solar plexus like a brand.

It was an outlining of a diamond with a scarlet scorpion at its center.


	2. Stirring the Sleepless

**A/N:** Now posted on ao3 as well! I made a cover photo for each chapter of Utopia, you can see them on ao3, or use the link on my profile if you're using the app (I tested it, and you should be able to copy it).

A shout-out to Jacpin2002 and Alexia for leaving such delightful reviews! Thank you for the suggestion, Alexia: I've read Zero Hours after Renaerys, which I loved, but I haven't gotten around to reading Abyss yet :)

And now for some magic!

* * *

Chapter 2

 **Stirring the Sleepless**

* * *

The pain was gone.

Sakura stood riveted to the spot in front of her mirror. Her breath hitched in her chest, and her throat convulsed on a sob. She couldn't deny that there was witchcraft at work here now that she had the evidence branded on her flesh.

She threw up into her sink.

The shock barely registered as nausea wracked through her. Sakura leaned over to rest her forehead against the cold mirror. She felt hollowed out like she'd just retched all of her internal organs down the drain. She pressed her forehead into the glass, trying to rid herself of the feeling, and yelped when it fractured. Blood welled from the fresh cut, and she lurched back in bewilderment. There hadn't nearly been enough force behind her touch to break the mirror, but the sting told her that her injury was real.

Sakura brought up a hand to assess the damage and watched the multiple copies of herself in between the cobweb-like cracks in the glass do the same. A surge of something danced across her fingertips, and a faint green light flickered in and out of existence, so quickly that she would have missed it if she'd blinked. The sting in her forehead vanished immediately, and Sakura wiped away the blood with a trembling hand. The wound was gone, and if it hadn't been for the blood and her broken mirror, Sakura would have a hard time believing she had been cut in the first place.

"What is happening to me?" she whispered, her voice cracking sharply in her throat.

Her dress slipped off her body and pooled onto the ground around her feet. She kicked it away and turned on the tap after seeing the disgusting state of her sink. Hopefully, the drain hadn't clogged with her vomit.

So much for all that fancy food.

Ears ringing and mind numb, she collapsed onto the closed toilet to remove her boots. They landed on top of the dress when she shook them off, but she couldn't be bothered to rescue the fabric off the floor. She needed a shower. Her skin was starting to crawl, and she quickly stripped out of her underwear. She bit her lips viciously to stop the chattering of her teeth and stepped into the cramped shower stall.

The pipes groaned when she turned it on, and icy water dripped on her where she stood underneath the weak spray. The plumbing inside the building was ancient, and Sakura banged her fist on the wall beside the shower-head for the hot water. There used to be a tile there, but it had broken after Sakura's continued abuse, leaving behind raw cement. The shower sputtered and released an intermittent torrent of scalding and freezing water. She came back to her senses when she ran out of hot water.

Shivering, Sakura noticed that she'd been rubbing the skin on her chest raw. The scorpion glared at her, and she quickly turned off her shower and stepped out, dripping water everywhere. She avoided looking into the mirror as she dried off and went through her bedtime routine on autopilot. She put on her sleepwear, brushed her teeth, and even put out a bowl of tuna onto her fire escape balcony for the grumpy old stray cat who lived in the alleyway below.

It wasn't until she was sitting in her bed, her back against the wall, that her focus returned. Sakura knew that she shouldn't waste electricity by keeping her lamp on, but the thought of being plunged into darkness was more frightening than she cared to admit. Furious at her own weakness, she flicked it off.

Sakura pressed her forehead to her knees and willed the tension building behind her eyes away. She focused on taking calming breaths, her ears piquing at any unexpected noise. The sounds of shouting and echoing laughter rang from the streets below, accompanied by the heavy beat of bass playing from passing cars and the distant sounds of traffic and sirens created a cacophony of a city that never slept.

Plagued by thoughts of monsters lurking outside her window, sleep was the last thing on Sakura's mind, and sitting alone in the dark did not help her overactive imagination. Did the red-haired man know that she'd witnessed everything, that she was now privy to the stuff of nightmares? Would he care? Bile rose in her throat when she remembered how his threads had stripped that rich guy of his will. Even the monster that had dragged itself out of the shadow, its essence dripping off its body like it was diseased, couldn't compare to the horror of becoming a slave to one's own body.

All it took was a flick of his finger, and another human had essentially become his puppet.

Minutes dragged into hours and hours turned into a new morning, and Sakura had a horrific crick in her neck when daylight forced its way through her blinds. At some point, the hubbub of nightlife had turned into the hailing voices of vendors working the morning market, contending with the blaring car horns as drivers stuck in traffic expressed their fury at being late for work.

Sakura groaned, feeling close to death as she tried to smother herself with her pillow.

Seeing the light brought a new perspective, and she chided herself for having given in to her paranoia-fueled thoughts so quickly. She slumped to the side with heavy eyes and stretched her aching body as she melted into her mattress. Unsurprisingly, she fell asleep almost instantly and drool smeared against her sheets as she started to snore.

Hours later, the sound of her phone ringing from somewhere inside the apartment jolted her back to reality, and Sakura felt truly rotten when she rolled out of bed to hunt down the damned thing. It was in the pocket of her jacket, and she peered at the ID with dry eyes.

 _Ino_.

"Hey, pig," Sakura said, clearing her throat when her voice came out cracked and worn.

"Morning, sunshine. You sound like shit," Ino greeted happily. "How's it hanging?"

"I'm hanging up if you're going to be rude," Sakura sniffed and staggered into her kitchen to drink some water. She drank directly from the faucet, vindictively holding her phone so Ino's voice was drowned out by the sound of running water. It washed away the sour taste of old vomit and toothpaste from her mouth.

"Are you done?" Ino asked dryly, unimpressed by Sakura's pettiness.

"Yes," she said primly.

"Good. Get your ass to the shop. I'm starting to feel depressed and _bored_ ," Ino said, emphasizing bored like that was the worse crime. Then again, it probably was in her mind. Sensing Sakura's hesitance, Ino pulled out the big guns. "I have coffee."

"Fine," Sakura sighed, cursing her weakness for a good brew. The Yamanaka's had some of the best coffee in town. It was store-bought, but it never tasted the same when she tried to make it herself. She suspected witchcraft. "I'll see you in twenty."

"Bye," Ino sang as she hung up.

"Witch," Sakura muttered as she put her phone on the table. She needed a shower. The one she'd taken last night had made her feel greasy, and Ino was bound to give her crap if she saw the state of her hair.

Whatever, she felt fine now.

Her tiny bathroom looked like a disaster zone. Dried blood and broken shards of the mirror speckled the sink, and her nice dress lay trampled underneath her boots on the floor. Sakura kicked the clothing out of the bathroom, so she had room to walk around. She suffered through another freezing shower, quickly lathering her hair with shampoo and jumped out the moment the suds were gone. Even the miracle of concealer did little to hide the bags underneath her eyes.

Sakura sniffed at her reflection in the shattered remnants of her mirror. She felt refreshed — that was a lie — but didn't look it. Her bloodshot eyes and pallor were not helping the case that she was trying to make against herself.

She was definitely not fine.

Sakura lowered the towel to peer at her chest. Yup, the mark was still there. She blew out her cheeks and poked at it. The pain from yesterday was nowhere to be found, and it felt like any other part of her skin. She wondered if she could do the same trick as she did yesterday with her fingers and heal it. Trying to dredge up the force she'd experienced yesterday, Sakura stared at her fingers, willing the green light to flicker into life.

Nothing happened.

There was no surge of inexplicable power, and Sakura was left feeling silly.

Shaking her head at herself, Sakura decided that it was for the best. There was no need to open that can of worms again. She grabbed her boots off the floor on her way out, leaving the mess in her sink to clean later, and pulled on a black thermal shirt and a pair of sweatpants, desiring comfort over her looks. Ino could cry in a corner over her fashion choices this time.

A single coin lay forgotten on the last step of her stairwell. Someone must have dropped it. Well, another person's loss was her gain, and Sakura took it as a sign that the odds were in her favor today and bent down to pick it up.

"Finders keepers," she sang as she stuck it into her pocket.

A throaty and judgmental 'meow' halted her step and she looked over her shoulder. The ugliest cat she had ever the misfortune of laying eyes on sat on the railing. He peered down his squashed nose at her with one judgmental eye.

Sakura turned to him with her hands on her hips. "Oh, so you're back now, huh, Jiji?"

He blinked. There was some gunk sticking to the creases beneath his eye. Sakura itched to clean it but knew better than to approach him without a sedative first.

She still had the scars on her arms from saving his life all those months ago.

He'd truly been in a wretched state when she found him behind her dumpster: fur so mangy and crusted in foul-smelling dirt that Sakura couldn't tell his natural color at first; his one orange eye glaring at her in feral fury as she tried to coax him towards her with a dried sardine, the other a gaping and pus-ridden sore in his head.

It was a miracle he pulled through when she finally nabbed him to the vet.

"Find any tasty rats? You didn't touch the tuna I left you. So ungrateful," she pouted but resisted the urge to scratch his chin when he yawned.

His balance remained perfect as he lifted a paw and started to clean between his razor-sharp claws. A warning.

She still wanted to pet him.

If only she could brush his fur. The vet had bathed him while he was still under and for a while, Sakura had been in awe of his sleek black coat, puffy and the softest she had ever touched. Now, he was back to being a stinky old man — though he somehow had the bearing of one of those purebreds, those with a pedigree a mile long that the upper-echelon salivated at the chance to flaunt around in those stupid cat-shows she guilt-watched on TV.

He sniffed dismissively and licked a furred shoulder.

She pulled out the big guns.

"I'll see if I can't get the old man to give us some fish for you tonight."

He perked up at ' _fish_ ' and Sakura wanted to coo.

For a feral cat, he was remarkably intelligent. He was also an unrepentant asshole and a prickly nuisance at the best of times. In the following weeks after she'd found him, when he was too weak to stand on his own, Sakura had nursed him back to health out of the goodness of her heart. Caring for him in her own apartment no less, despite the strict ban on any house pets. Between foolhardy plots of escape to one memorable coup d'état — Ms. Adachi from down the hall still gave her the stink eye whenever they met in the laundry room — and his preoccupation with stealing her socks, the damed creature had managed to worm his way into her heart.

Even when he took to yowling in vindication for his cruel imprisonment.

Their cohabitation may not have lasted for long after that, but she always found him snooping around on her balcony. Which was on the eighth floor.

 _Crazy cat._

"You like the sound of that? Some juicy fish-guts? I'm going to Ino, I'll see you tonight." Sakura waved, but he'd already skirted off the railing with a parting grunt.

Her hand hung in the air for a moment. She could have sworn that his eye gleamed red before he left.

 _Must have been a trick of the light._

Sakura shrugged it off and sighed, "So demanding."

Deciding against driving her bike to Ino because the traffic during the afternoon was especially dreadful, Sakura ambled down the sidewalk. There was always traffic, the price of living in such an overpopulated city, but it grew even more chaotic when people were eager to get home from work. As a pedestrian, Sakura was able to walk faster than the sluggish line of moving cars. Their continuous and futile honking grated on her nerves, though and she wished she'd grabbed her earphones.

The feeble March sun tried to push its tendrils way through the smog with little success, and Sakura huddled deeper into her red jacket as it started to drizzle. Konoha was an odd district. It stretched well into the wealthier parts of the city where she and Ino had dined last night, but it also made up the majority of the Fringes. It wasn't the poorest part of the city by any standards, not nearly as decrepit as corrupt Oto, but it wasn't as touched by the technological advancement as the other districts either, especially near the Founder's Village, which was deserted for the most parts.

As the modern metropolis Sakura lived in today had grown, technological advancement leaping forward at a pace they could hardly keep up with, the ruins of the village were pushed to the side to allow for new development. The village now hugged the outskirts of the Forest of Death, which no sane person stepped into willingly. There was a reason for its gruesome name.

Tales of souls lost to creeping monsters and creatures were kept alive by the retelling of old wives' tales and horror stories to young children in an effort keep them in line. Not that those tales had done any good to control rebellious teens, Sakura could attest to that, but people in these parts were superstitious by nature.

Sakura couldn't help but wonder if there hadn't been a grain of truth to the stories after all.

From what she'd had seen, nature was well on its way of swallowing the abandoned remains of civilization and Sakura remembered the night she'd visited those parts with her friends. They'd frightened each other with tales of ghosts and demons that were rumored to haunt the Founder's Village and egged each other on to walk the streets and break into dilapidated and forgotten buildings. Nothing truly frightening had happened, beyond the time they'd run into some squatters.

However, now, years later, her old fears of being stolen away and eaten were starting to return.

Sakura shook away her morbid thoughts. There was no way she was going anywhere near that forest after what she'd seen. That ruled out taking the subway to Ino because it still followed the tracks through the old station there despite it having been years since they closed it.

She was waiting for the lights at the intersection when something odd happened. It felt like a hairy spider was scuttling up her spine, and Sakura shuddered violently at the disgusting sensation. She snapped her head to look over her shoulder and froze.

There was a man with shaggy black hair standing beside a cart carrying mangos.

Sakura wouldn't have given the stranger a second thought if he hadn't stuck out like a sore thumb. It wasn't the expensive suit he wore, thankfully no red cloud pin in sight, though the vendor was practically salivating as he shouted prices at him, or his oddly colored eyes — Sakura could have sworn they looked yellow in the flashing lights of the vendor's neon sign.

No, it was the familiar thin blue thread that was embedded in the back of his head.

He looked her way.

Sakura threw herself behind a vending machine with her heart lodged in her throat. _Shit, shit, shit!_ Sakura was sure of it now. She was cursed, and this was only the tipping point. If she weren't careful, she'd be the picking between the teeth of a shadowy beast before she knew it.

Peeking around the corner, Sakura hunched back when she made direct eye contact with yellow eyes. _Fuck_. She needed to get out of here and fast.

There was a tram station up ahead, and people were trying to cram themselves into the full wagon. Deciding to take the risk, Sakura dashed to it and jumped onto its rear as the bell rang to alert its departure. She wasn't the only one hanging onto it, and no one gave her a second glance, but when she looked over at the fruit vendor again, the man had vanished along with his string.

She didn't believe for a second that this would be the last she saw of him. The tram lurched forward and she tightened her grip on the rail. There was a trickle of black sand that had somehow gotten on her sleeve, probably from the filthy wall she'd crept behind, and she brushed it away. It fluttered down like soot, but Sakura paid it no mind. She had bigger problems to worry about than some dirt on her clothes.

 _She didn't notice when the soot changed its descent like it had a mind of its own and clung to the back of her boot._

Sakura felt exposed hanging like this. Why had she worn her red coat today of all days? It was bad enough that her hair was naturally an attention-grabbing pink, but the white circle of the Haruno crest blazed on her back. She might as well be wearing a target!

The moment she was out of the neighborhood, she let go and landed in the middle of the road. The other drivers didn't slow down around her and bleated their horns at her angrily as she darted across to safer ground. Thankfully, she made it onto the sidewalk with all of her limbs intact.

Yellow-eyes was nowhere in sight, and Sakura had to double back a block because her spontaneous tram-ride had taken her further than she needed. She walked down the street with a new sense of foreboding, feeling like she was stuck in some deranged game of cat and mouse. She fully expected the red-haired man from yesterday to spring out at her, cackling like a witch, and place another curse on her.

Sakura rounded a corner, and the familiar storefront window of Yamanaka Flowers came into view. The street lay along the edge of a suburb but wasn't very busy today, so only a couple of street vendors were inhabiting it.

A bedraggled homeless woman dressed in rags sat in front of a laundromat and disturbed passersby with deep guttural screams. A fair number of mad people roamed the streets of Konoha, and this woman wasn't the first to let loose with outlandish behavior in public. People were used to it, and the reaction was always the same. Their eyes passed over her like she wasn't even there, and adults pulled their children away as they stopped to stare at her in open fascination.

She threw her head back and wailed again, and Sakura was tempted to join her and cry as well.

That was until the old crone swiveled around and hissed at her with bloodshot eyes.

Sakura took a step back but pulled out the coin she'd found by her building and flipped it into the woman's ragged paper cup. She may be poor, but at least she had a house over her head. Besides, the coin hadn't brought her any luck today despite her dire need of it, but it might brighten this woman's day.

Her screams died in her throat, and she looked down into her cup in queer astonishment. She seemed to shrink in size and bowed her head to Sakura, once, before turning and dragging her bag into the laundromat, presumably to use her new coin to clean her clothes.

The Yamanaka Flowers didn't keep any of their flowers outside the store, wary of thieving hands, but always kept a fresh display in the bright storefront window.

Ino manned the counter. She was tying together a bouquet of white flowers and looked up when the bell rang as Sakura pushed open the door.

"Finally," she groaned in greeting the moment Sakura stepped into her store. She put down her scissors and brushed the bouquet aside to plant down her elbows and prop up her chin on her palms as she gave Sakura an assessing look.

She was obviously found lacking because Ino cringed at her attire.

"What the everloving fuck are you wearing?"

"Eloquent," Sakura grunted, huddling deeper into her coat to hide her hair from prying eyes. "And yes, hello to you too, Ino! How am I doing? Oh, I'm grand, thank you for asking!"

Ino ignored her griping and moaned in despair. "Sweatpants? At this hour?"

Sakura noted with a pout that she looked like a runway model even though she was just wearing a plain off-the-shoulders purple top and a pair of high-waisted black jeans underneath her white shop-apron.

The world was so cruel and unfair.

"What happened to the bomb-ass babe I was with yesterday?"

"She spewed her guts out after you fed her oysters and caviar," Sakura muttered, disgruntled at the reminder of her former glory.

Ino peered at her and seemed to find it in her heart to forgive Sakura's fashion faux pas with an emphatic, " _Ew_."

Even Ino's theatrics couldn't distract Sakura from the monumental mistake she'd made by coming here. It was unbelievably stupid for having risked leading a potentially lethal threat to Ino's shop — to her _home_. There wasn't much Sakura could do about it now since she was here, but she should get into the habit of thinking ahead for once.

"I was promised coffee," she said with a calm she wasn't feeling.

"It's in the back, you leech." Ino pointed her thumb over her shoulder and added. "There should be some chocolate there as well — and a hairbrush! I know that you haven't even had breakfast today."

"Thanks," Sakura said dryly.

"Love you," Ino sang after her.

The familiar surroundings of the dinky little room at the back of the store eased Sakura's stress. She had fond memories of sitting on the wooden stool that sat in the corner as Ino made them coffee while they gossiped, or 'shared intel' as Ino liked to call it. If she hadn't been so determined to take over the family business from a young age, Sakura swore Ino would have thrived in government surveillance or intelligence gathering — or perhaps interrogation. Ino could be absolutely ruthless sometimes.

Bless her heart, Ino had already set the coffee machine up, so Sakura only had to press the red button on the screen to turn it on. It buzzed to life, and a stream of black coffee trickled into the ready mug. Sakura had her own cup, a testament to how much time she'd spent here — it even had a cute little sakura blossom on the side. She plucked a piece of chocolate from the small bowl and let it melt on her tongue as the coffee machine ' _plinked_ ' to signal that it had finished its job.

Lo and behold, there was a hairbrush. And a bowl of hair-ties. Sakura grabbed one and brushed her hair into a hasty bun. It sank a few inches, and a few strands escaped to flutter around her face. Sakura tried to rearrange them to frame her face but gave it up as a bad job.

She plucked another piece of chocolate for Ino before she joined her out front and tossed it to her. Taking a tentative sip from her mug, she let out a long sigh as the tension melted from her shoulders.

"Next time, I'm taking you back to Genma's. You've never hurled at his place," Ino announced, tearing a white ribbon down the middle and curling the strands artfully on the edge of a pair of scissors.

They always went to Genma's Place on Sakura's birthday. Genma, owner and cook of Genma's Place, ran the whole business from his garage. His tempura was the stuff of legend, and Sakura was wholly ready to kill and die for a taste of it right now.

He also happened to be an arms dealer on the side, but everyone had a hobby.

"Mmmm," Sakura hummed, close to drooling at the thought of his deliciously crunchy fried seafood. While Ino drooled beside her at the thought of flirting with the roguishly handsome cook. They had a weird relationship of Will-They-Won't-They but would probably never do anything because Ino had her eyes on someone else.

Still, it meant they were given a discount whenever they dropped by.

"Who are those for?" she asked Ino, nodding her head at the white bouquet, regretting her question almost instantly when she saw the elegant wreath of chrysanthemum.

"You remember Mrs. Yamada?" Ino didn't look up.

Sakura blanched. "Shika's neighbor? No!"

Ino touched a fragile petal with the pad of her thumb. "Yeah, double homicide. A hit and run, and she lost both her husband and son in one night."

"Shit, how's she holding up?"

She didn't know Mrs. Yamada's son very well. He was much older than them, having moved out when Sakura and Ino had just met, but Mrs. Yamada was always warm to them and made the best sweet tea on the block. Sakura would sometimes join Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji during the summer when they cleaned her stairs for some of that tea.

"Well, Yoshino is helping her with everything, but…" she trailed off and tugged a stray leaf from the wreathe. Sakura could see that there were faint shadows underneath Ino's eyes, veiled beneath a smooth layer of concealer, and knew how taxing this must be for her.

It seemed like everyone had someone to grieve nowadays.

Ino straightened and cleared her face of any melancholy. "Hey, you still got that weird rash?"

"It's just a stupid little bug bite." Sakura shook her head. It was better to keep Ino in the dark for now. Or at least until she figured out what was going on.

Though her involuntary tattoo had already caused her a lot of grief, Sakura couldn't help but be a little intrigued by it as well. It was a mystery. A distraction she wanted to latch onto and rip apart.

"Well, you'll tell me if it starts spreading. We don't need you to start a new epidemic," Ino said with a sharp grin, and Sakura rolled her eyes at her.

"I'll let you know if I start losing my limbs," Sakura bit back sarcastically.

"You better. That reminds me, I need to return our dresses," said Ino.

Sakura winced, remembering the state she'd left it in. She'd have to stop by the dry-clean before Ino could see it.

"Where'd you get them?"

"Oh, Tenten's mom intended to put them on display, so I gave her our measurements," Ino said, and Sakura drowned in another surge of guilty for having left it on the bathroom floor with shards of glass.

They'd studied together at Konoha's Academy for Troubled Young Adults, but with a name like that, it didn't surprise many that the dropout rate was higher than anywhere else in Konoha. Tenten was a year older than them, having been kept a year back, which wasn't unusual. She was one of the few classmates Sakura had kept in contact with after graduation, and one of only three girls graduated in their year, Ino being the other, so they stuck together.

"I'll bring it over tomorrow." Sakura placed her mug on the table and played with the end of a ribbon. Ino started to pull together a new arrangement, this time with red roses and calla lilies.

"You haven't been to the Blossom in awhile," Ino remarked after a moment.

Sakura couldn't meet her eyes.

Tenten ran an old-school dojo with her friend and old sensei which became a staple for Sakura to work on her aggression. ' _The Youthful Blossom_ ' was renowned both for its martial arts and for its owner's eccentricity. It been too long. Sakura almost missed having her ears bleed at frenzied proclamations of the ' _Springtime blossoming of youth!_ '

"Yeah, I've just been busy," she said, and even she thought her excuse sounded weak. The last time she'd seen all her friends in one place was at a funeral with two empty caskets, and Sakura wasn't excited to relive her emotions by meeting the gang again so soon.

Sakura looked away and thanked the high heavens that she did.

Her suited stalker was on the other side of the street. She quickly ducked behind a display of carnations and hoped that she would blend in with the pastel pink blossoms.

It was too late, he'd seen her, and Sakura dropped down to the floor in a crouch.

Ino eyed her in question, and her gaze darted to the window to see what had her so spooked.

"Alright, what's going on, forehead?" she asked with her hands on her hips.

"See that guy - the one who's standing by the laundromat?" Sakura said, and Ino nodded, her eyes narrowed into slits. "He's been following me."

"The one with the golden eyes?" Ino's frown turned downright vicious. They'd both had their fair share of men who refused to take a hint.

"Yeah," Sakura affirmed. How Ino could see his eye color from across the street was beyond her, but she was glad that Ino believed her without hesitation.

"Well, you better get a move on because he's heading this way," Ino scowled, nudging Sakura further out of sight. "Use the back door. I'll distract him and try to find out who he is."

"I'm sorry I led him here," Sakura whispered, genuinely worried for Ino's safety, but knew that it would only be worse if they were to confront him inside the store.

"Shut up. You were right to come to me," Ino snapped and took her station behind the counter, hiding Sakura behind her. The white-knuckled grip she had on her scissors gave away her anxiety. "Now scram!"

"Thank you," Sakura said and stayed in her crouched position as she scuttled through the store and into the back. The jingle of the front door warned her that he was inside when she stepped out into the back-alley.

"Hi, welcome to Yamanaka Flower. How can I help you?" Sakura heard Ino ask in a sugary sweet voice as she closed the door behind her gently.

Thinking fast, she jogged further into the alley and jumped onto a closed dumpster before leaping up onto an empty fire escape. She climbed up quickly and swung her legs up onto the roof. It was slick with rainwater, and she almost slipped but rolled back to safety. Water seeped into the back of her jacket and was soaked to the bone.

Sakura jumped up with a growl.

"Fucking perfect!" She didn't notice how the black soot, which had clung to her since the tram station, partially seeped off her as it got drenched, too busy berating herself as she rolled her shoulders to keep the wet fabric of her shirt from plastering against her neck.

Struck by a sudden thought, Sakura went to the edge of the rood and looked down to determine which way her stalkers thread lead, positive that the redhead was manipulating it on the other side. She would head in the opposite direction. It was pulled taught from underneath the flower shop's front door, and Sakura frowned, already regretting her decision of leaving Ino alone with the puppet-freak.

She hovered in a moment of indecision, torn between turning tail and getting as far away from her stalker and his master as she could, and to return to Ino's side. The decision was taken out of her hands when the front door opened, and the man stepped out again. He didn't appear ruffled from a fight, so Ino hadn't resorted to using her scissors.

Sakura threw herself back with a gasp when his head snapped back at an unnatural angle and stared up at the place she'd been moments ago. How had he known where she was? Not willing to wait and find out, Sakura scrambled back and ran across the apartment block and launched herself up onto the neighboring roof. She skidded on the wet stone but kept her balance as she sprinted as far as the building allowed her. There was a five-meter gap between the one she was on and the next, and Sakura threw caution to the wind and launched herself off the building.

She made it.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she rolled with her rough landing. The scent of cooking wafted towards her and Sakura realized that she was nearing the food district. There weren't any more buildings for her to jump onto as most of the market was made up of cramped stalls, so she quickly found another fire escape to travel down.

She darted across the street and tried to blend into the crowd of people emerging from the entrance of a subway station. The market was packed with people looking for an early dinner, but Sakura knew her way around the place. She'd frequented it daily for most of her life. Until a few months ago.

A loud bark of laughter had her stumbling. The sound was so familiar that she made the unforgivable mistake of letting instinct rule her. She stopped. A pang rippled through her chest when the familiar aroma of Ichiraku's ramen filtered through her senses. _Of course_. Forgetting her pursuer, Sakura stared at the little ramen stand, the desire to push the flaps out of the way and see Naruto sitting in his chair choking her.

 _He would be there, eating his third bowl of ramen and laughing at his own stupid jokes as he spoke to Teuchi, and maybe he'd dragged a sulking Sasuke along_ —

Frigid water doused the treacherous, fleeting, _false_ hope growing inside Sakura's chest when a stranger pushed the flap to the side. He was the source of laughter, and he and his companion waved to old man Teuchi as they left.

Sakura backed away, tears prickling her eyes at having been so stupid and her back knocked against someone's chest.

It was her stalker.

Her hands inched into her jacket's pocket, fitting her fingers into the reassuring coldness of the steel-looped handle of her dusters, ready to strike if he made any move towards her.

But he didn't grab her like she'd anticipated. Or give any inclination that he'd chased her across half the city. His hands stayed non-threateningly at his sides.

Sakura shivered.

Up close, he looked like a shoddy imitation of a human. His hair was the only thing about him that seemed real. His skin had a wooden quality, and his jaw had deep gauges that ran down to his mouth like one of those ventriloquist dolls. Sakura expected it to unhinge at any moment and reveal his hollow insides. His lifeless eyes bored into her. They were unnatural as well, with two horizontal lines stretching from his irises and through the whites of his eyes.

He didn't blink.

"Excuse me," Sakura said stiffly.

He stared at her blankly but didn't move.

Thoroughly freaked out, Sakura shouldered past him and hurried back to the subway entrance. She apparently couldn't outrun him, but she might be able to lose him there. A stream of people slowed her down as she thundered down the stairs, but she broke off into a run when she entered the station. Security was a breeze after they'd installed a new scanning system and Sakura chose the train that was only a minute away. She had to sprint down an escalator. There were plenty of other people in a hurry, and Sakura tagged on behind them as they created a way through the crowd.

The hot air from the subway and the smell of burnt rubber assaulted her nose as she made it down to the platform. Sakura didn't think before she jumped into the nearest train and glued herself to one of the poles. That way she had quick access to the door and a better vantage point to see down the entire length of the subway car. Fewer people were on board than she'd anticipated. A quick look at the sign inside of it told her why.

It was the Red Line.

The only train that passed through the Founder's terminal.

Just her luck.

Yellow-eyes stepped in on the other side of the car. The doors slid shut, sealing them in. Sakura shivered, but he appeared content to stand there and watch her. The train lurched forward and picked up to a speed that made Sakura's ears pop. She spread her feet to keep her balance and stared back with a confidence she wasn't feeling.

Much too fast in her opinion, the train started to slow as it transferred onto the rickety tracks of the old station. They didn't stop, but Sakura could see that weed had taken to grow between cracks in the floors and walls of the platform.

The roof was partially caved in, and the dark sky peeked through. In the distance stood tall trees, their thick canopies just visible in the pale moonlight. Fresh rainwater dripped onto the floor and created a small pool of gray water on the moss-covered concrete. The sweet, pungent scents that usually accompanied a thunderstorm tickled Sakura's nose, and her mind started to fog up as she breathed in the smell.

Time seemed to slow down to a stop, the train barely moving, and Sakura blinked with heavy lids as a thin bolt of yellow lightning struck the pool on the platform. No one else seemed aware of the extraordinary image the light created. It shattered into a thousand pieces and melted into a mirage of colors that then split apart, each growing long spindly legs and morphing into individual shapes. In the midst of a fever dream, Sakura's vision swam as her head tilted forward, feeling inordinately heavy.

She'd never believed in any of the nonsense about ' _auras_ ' and ' _chakra_ ' that Ino was so fond of. Sakura took it back now. This was the trippiest shit she'd ever seen — not even Shikamaru's skunk weed could compare — which was astonishing, considering just last night she'd seen a monster.

The lightning beings raced across the floor, changing colors sporadically, and disappeared through the cracks in the walls. They vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared and Sakura's head slowly cleared.

Her mind sharpened, and she became fully aware of her surroundings as the train announced its approach to the next destination. A plan started to form in her mind as they began to slow down. She was exhausted and beginning to feel the effects of running on an empty stomach for the entire day. It wouldn't be much of a brawl if he caught her now, though she was spoiling for a fight.

It was time to lose Yellow-eyes once and for all.

Sakura walked over to the nearest door and watched her stalker do the same two doors down.

The doors opened, and she pretended to get off.

She stalled, letting the flow of people surround her as they got onto the train. She could see his shaggy head bob among the crowd as he looked for her. _Good_ , Sakura thought vindictively, allowing the people getting off behind her to elbow their way past her without complaint.

The train chimed to signal the closing of its doors, and Sakura threw herself back inside.

Yellow-eyes stood rooted to the spot, and she watched him recede into the distance.

* * *

 **A/N:** Re-written and characters added! (11/9/2019). More to come, so stay tuned!


End file.
